The present invention refers to an attachment for a partial, removable dental prosthesis.
It is known to use a partial removable prosthesis when the number and disposition of the remaining teeth of an arch do not admit the application of a fixed prosthesis or bridge. A removable prosthesis comprises a saddle resting on the maxillary bones and an anchorage to at least a pillar tooth by means of hooks or through a precision attachment made up of two coulisses (or guides) with a male-female connection, one of which is welded to a crown cemented on the pillar tooth and the other incorporated in the prosthesis.
Numerous types of precision attachments for partial removable prostheses are known, but all the types known at present have some drawbacks. In fact, some of these known precision attachments lack completely the possibility to adjust the retaining force between the male coulisse and female coulisse which is necessary for the stabilization of the prosthesis. Other known attachments having this characteristic require repeated and difficult operations for disassembling the various components of the attachment or for acting repeatedly upon very small screws or keys that are not easy to reach. In addition, none of the known attachments for removable prostheses are adjustable so that their working characteristics can be changed. They do not permit transformation of a rigid attachment into a semi-rigid attachment or into a cushioned (or dampened) attachment as is very often necessary, instead, after a weakening or lost of one of the pillar teeth.